1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a distributed power system and more specifically to an intelligent distributed power system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The distributed power system generally includes a master locomotive setting throttle/brake and transmitting information to slave locomotives to set their throttle/brakes. An early system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,380,399 to Southard et al. The ability of the remote locomotive to receive a throttle command from the master locomotive and make a modification to conserve fuel in a train consists is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,344,364 to Nickles et al. The ability of the remote locomotive to transmit back diagnostic information is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,284 by Roselli et al. The distributed power settings being determined at and transmitted from the master unit to a slave unit based on the topography and location of the master and slave units is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,144,901 to Nickles et al., as well as U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,967 to Montgomery.